Walter Trout

WALTER TROUT JIM MCCARTYDoors open at 7pmWalters next album, Sign of the Times, drops Sep 5thGreat artists take the pulse of their times. In his half-century as a street-level social observer and scaldingly honest songwriter, blues-rocks resilient icon Walter Trout has never told his fans what to think, how to feel, where to stand politically, or what to scrawl on their protest placards. But in an era when his home nation and the wider world is ripping at the seams over the battlelines of modern life, the iconic US bluesmans hard-rocking new album, Sign Of The Times, is the primal scream and pressure valve we all desperately need. I wanted to convey the anger and angst goingon in the world, explains the 74-year-old. For me, writing these songs is therapy. Theyre not just about whats happening out there, but how it affects you in your head. Sign Of The Times just became the obvious titleRight now, it feels like the amps have barely cooled from 2024s Broken (That record debuted on Billboard at #1 I was very, very pleased with that). But the era-chronicling songs from Sign Of The Times wouldnt wait, these urgent riffs flying off the guitarists fingers, assisted once again by Dr Marie Trout, Walters wife, manager and latterly co-writer, whose eloquent lyrics struck each subject on the head. This album flowed pretty easily, he reflects of the writing process. I had so many song ideas and pages of lyrics from Marie. We could have kept going and made a triple album.With ten new songs written and arranged, Trout was ready to call up his studio band longtime drummer Michael Leasure, bassist John Avila and keys man Teddy Zig Zag Andreadis for sessions at producer Thomas Ross Johansens Strawhorse Studios in Los Angeles. Immediately, the tinderbox subject matter sparked one of the toughest-sounding records in his catalogue. Let me put it this way, considers Trout, after we finished recording the title track, my keys player Teddy said, Well, you wont be winning a blues award this year. But I really felt like rocking on this album. We hadheavy things to talk about, and we went for it musically too.